Ethan Dodd – Visual Artist. Cardiff, Wales

March 13, 2014March 13, 2014

‘I am Sitting in a Room’, Alvin Lucier, 1969

A fascinating piece, and quite possibly one of my favourite auditory artworks I have ever encountered. Lucier sits within a room, and with the use of a microphone and two recorders; changes a spoken word narrative into a piece of peaceful drone music. As Lucier reads out his passage into the Microphone, it is recorded on the first recorder. This recording is then played and recorded on the second device, when it finishes, the second device plays and the first device records. This is then continued indefinitely until the tones and semblance of the words spoken are lost to the vibrations that are morphed by the room’s acoustics; He utilises the room the piece is crafted in as an actual instrument.

Incredibly relevant to our piece, we are interested in the manipulation of sounds as a way to make our subjects feel uneasy. As this piece is actually quite a soothing noise, we will have to attempt to stray from this. Would it be beneficial to keep some semblance of the voices/footsteps? As the human mind is so often scared of the unknown, a series of whispers and/or footsteps would greatly unnerve the user, especially if they became far too loud to bear being around. We will have to keep this in mind when crafting our experimental space.